Integrated video service peer to peer network system

ABSTRACT

An integrated video service peer to peer network system, includes: a media source system, configured to divide video service data into one or more segments and each of the one or more segments into a plurality of blocks, and to generate a media description file based on segment dividing information and media format information, wherein, each of the plurality of blocks is of a self-description type and comprises a block head and a block body, the block body including media data; a media distribution management system, configured to store media distribution information, wherein, the media distribution information represents the information of the storage status of divided video service data segments at a peer source node and the information of the serving capability status of the peer source node; and a plurality of the peer source nodes, configured to store the video service data, and to transmit the video service data to a service requesting node. With the present invention, the range of sharing can be effectively extended, the usage of the client resources can be optimized, while the provider system and the client system are significantly simplified, so the cost of the operation and maintenance are reduced.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This Application is a national phase of International Application No.PCT/CN2007/003807, entitled “AN INTEGRATING VIDEO SERVICE PEER TO PEERNETWORKS SYSTEM”, which was filed on Dec. 26, 2007, and which claimspriority of Chinese Patent Application No. 200710135734.0, filed on Aug.10, 2007.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to communication field, and in particularto an integrated video service peer to peer network system.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Due to the fast development of internet and wideband access network,various types of video services, such as download, video-on-demand, livebroadcasting, etc., are enabled by employing Peer to Peer network (P2Pfor short) technology. However, current P2P system generally can onlysupport a single type of service, for example, BT can only supportdownload service, and PPlive can only support live broadcasting service.If a user wants to process more than one type of services, a pluralityof client programs has to be installed, and a plurality of systems forsupporting these services has to be set up by the service provider,which not only leads to high construction cost and inconvenience forsubscriber usage, but also is disadvantageous to effectively utilize thevideo contents and client resources, thus the overall cost for providingP2P video service is increased.

Current P2P system has been proposed and established aiming at aparticular service, and is not unified in view of media storage format,transmission format, transmission mechanism, and media sourcepositioning mechanism, so one system can only provide one kind ofservice. However, a system which is able to provide various types ofservices has not been proposed so far.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is made upon considering the above problem, thusthe main object of the present invention is to provide an integratedvideo service peer to peer network system.

The integrated video service peer to peer network system according to anembodiment of the present invention comprises:

a media source system, configured to divide video service data into oneor more segments and each of the one or more segments into a pluralityof blocks, and to generate a media description file based on segmentdividing information and media format information, wherein, each of theplurality of blocks is of a self-description type and comprises a blockhead and a block body, the block body including media data;

a media distribution management system, configured to store the mediadistribution information, wherein, the media distribution informationrepresents the information of the storage status of divided videoservice data segments at a peer source node and the information of theserving capability status of the peer source node; and

a plurality of the peer source nodes, configured to store the videoservice data, and to transmit the video service data to a servicerequesting node.

Wherein, the video service data can comprise live broadcasting videoservice data, video on demand service data, and video downloadingservice data.

In particular, the media source system further comprises: a real timeprocessing module, configured to set the blocks adjacent to thebroadcasting point in the live broadcasting video service data as a livebroadcasting video service data segment, and set only one livebroadcasting video service data segment, when the live broadcastingservice data is broadcasted to the service requesting node, the blocksin the live broadcasting service data segment is updated in real time;and a non-real time processing module, configured to divide, in aunified way, the video downloading service data and/or the video ondemand service data into a plurality of segments and to divide eachsegment of the video downloading service data and/or the video on demandservice data into a plurality of blocks, wherein each of the pluralityof blocks is consisted of a block head and a block body, the block bodyincluding the media data ordered in time sequence.

Wherein, the aforementioned media data may be video frames and audioframes. When the video downloading service data and/or the video ondemand service data are received, the service requesting node combinesthe received blocks of the video downloading service data and/or thevideo on demand service data as the segment, and stores, in the unit ofthe segment, the video downloading service data and/or the video ondemand service data the.

In addition, in the system, the service requesting node acquires,through inquiring the media distribution management system, theinformation of the peer source node having the video service datasegments needed by the service requesting node the.

And, the peer source node may further comprise: a change notificationmodule, configured to notify, when the peer source node changes, themedia distribution management system the information of the change, sothat the media distribution management system updates the mediadistribution data based on the change. Wherein, the change at leastcomprises: the peer source node going on-line or off-line, the change ofthe segment dividing of the video service data in the memory and thedisk of the peer source node, and the change of the serving capabilityof the peer source node.

In addition, the information contained in the block head comprises: acontent ID contained in the block, a segment ID to which the blockbelongs, the number of effective blocks in the block, and a timestamp.

In addition, the peer source node stores the video service data in theunit of the segment.

By the above said technical scheme of the present invention, the systemcan support a plurality of video service types, such as video on demand,live broadcasting, downloading, etc., which makes two clients usingdifferent services be able to share video contents and provide servicesto each other, which effectively extends the range of sharing, andoptimizes the usage of client resources, while the provider system andthe client system are significantly simplified, and the cost of theoperation and maintenance are reduced.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The drawings illustrated here provide a further understanding of thepresent invention and form a part of the present application. Theexemplary embodiments and the description thereof are used to explainthe present invention without unduly limiting the scope of the presentinvention, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the integrated video service peer to peernetwork system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of dividing and packaging the video servicedata according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of circumstance in which one receiving nodereceives video data from a plurality of source nodes according to anembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of the format in which video data is storedby the receiving node according to an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 5 is a message flow chart of the source node positioning process inthe integrated video service data transmission system according to anembodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

System Embodiment

In the embodiment, an integrated video service peer to peer networksystem is provided.

As shown in FIG. 1, the integrated video service peer to peer networksystem according to the embodiment of the present invention comprises: amedia source system 102 configured to divide video service data into oneor more segments and each of the one or more segments into a pluralityof blocks, and to generate a media description file based on segmentdividing information and media format information, wherein, each of theplurality of blocks is of a self-description type and comprises a blockhead and a block body, the block body including media data, thus whenbeing received, different blocks can be received at different sourcenodes; a media distribution management system 104 configured to storethe media distribution information, wherein, the media distributioninformation represents the information of the storage status of thedivided video service data segments at a peer source node and theinformation of the serving capability status of the peer source node;and a plurality of the peer source nodes P configured to store the videoservice data, and to transmit the video service data to a servicerequesting node.

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of dividing and packaging the video servicedata according to the embodiment of the present invention. As shown inFIG. 2, each segment may comprise a segment head and a data part, inwhich the data part is consisted of a fixed number of blocks. Thesegment head comprises domains such as a content ID, a segment ID, thenumber of effective blocks, and a beginning timestamp, etc. A blockcontains a block head and a block body (data domain), in which the blockbody is formed of a series of audio/video frames ordered in timesequence. The block head comprises domains such as a content ID, thenumber of effective frames, a beginning timestamp, and a framedescription item array, etc. Wherein, each frame description itemcomprises a frame type field, a frame size field, and a frame storagepointer field, etc. The content of the media description file mainlycomprises a media segment beginning ID, the number of segments, and thedescription information of other media format.

Moreover, the above said video service data may comprise livebroadcasting video service data, video on demand service data, and videodownloading service data. The difference in service types (livebroadcasting, video on demand, downloading) can represent the differencein the sequence of obtaining the media data, the time of selecting andthe storage type. For example, video on demand service generallyrequires to sequentially obtain the media segments, whereas videodownloading service does not have to sequentially obtain the mediasegments and also does not have to sequentially obtain the block data inthe segment; in addition, the data of live broadcasting servicegenerally can only be cached in memory, while the video on demand anddownloading can not only be cached in memory but also be stored in disk.

In particular, the media source system 102 can further comprise a realtime processing module, configured to set the blocks adjacent to thebroadcasting point in the live broadcasting video service data as a livebroadcasting video service data segment, and set only one livebroadcasting video service data segment, when the live broadcastingservice data is broadcasted to the service requesting node, the blocksin the live broadcasting service data segment is updated in real time;and a non-real time processing module, configured to divide, in aunified way, the video downloading service data and/or the video ondemand service data into a plurality of segments and to divide eachsegment of the video downloading service data and/or the video on demandservice data into a plurality of blocks, wherein each of the pluralityof blocks is consisted of a block head and a block body, the block bodyincluding the media data ordered in time sequence. Wherein, theaforementioned media data may be video frames and audio frames.

And when the video downloading service data and/or the video on demandservice data are received, the service requesting node combines thereceived blocks of the video downloading service data and/or the videoon demand service data as the segment, and stores, in the unit of thesegment, the video downloading service data and/or the video on demandservice data.

FIG. 3 shows the circumstance in which one receiving node receives videodata from a plurality of source nodes. As shown in FIG. 3, before theblock transmission, the receiving node (i.e., the aforementioned servicerequesting node, which will be referred to as a client) obtains thestatus data of the blocks of the media segment described using bit arrayfrom the source node (also referred to as a source client), wherein eachbit represents a block, 1 denotes that the source client has the datablock, and 0 denotes that the source client does not have the datablock. After having obtained the status data of media blocks of aplurality of source clients, the receiving client requests data fromeach of the source clients block by block.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the storage format of the video data at thereceiving node. Generally, there are two types of storage medium, i.e.,memory and disk. Preferably, the live broadcasting data block is cachedin a memory and rolling aged; while the video on demand and downloadingdata are also first cached in memory, and then stored in a disk afterall data of a complete segment are cached. By this way, it is enabledthat the receiving and playing function of the client can be completelyseparated from the external service providing function, i.e., no matterwhich service is being used or which media is being played by the clientcurrently, both the media in the memory and the media in the disk canprovide services to other clients.

FIG. 5 shows the message flow chart of media source positioning. Asshown in FIG. 5, in the system, the service requesting node acquires,through inquiring the media distribution management system 104, theinformation of one or more peer source node having the video servicedata segments needed by the service requesting node, the servicerequesting node can obtain media data from the corresponding peer sourcenode/nodes in combination with the segment dividing information of thevideo service data.

The media source system 102 and the media distribution management system104 can use centralized deployment or distributed deployment accordingto the particular circumstance.

Further, the peer source node may further comprise: a changenotification module, configured to notify, when the peer source nodechanges, the media distribution management system the information of thechange, so that the media distribution management system updates themedia distribution data based on the change. Wherein, the change atleast comprises: the peer source node going on-line or off-line, thechange of the segment dividing of the video service data in the memoryand the disk of the peer source node, and the change of the servingcapability of the peer source node.

By the system mentioned above, live broadcasting video, video on demandand downloading video service can be established on the same base P2Pplatform, on which, the media packaging format, the media sourcepositioning mechanism, the media data transmission mechanism, and theclient media storage mechanism can be shared.

In addition, when the peer source node goes on-line or off-line, whenthe segment dividing of the video service data in the memory and thedisk of the peer source node changes, and/or when the serving capabilityof the peer source node changes, the following processing is furtherperformed, the peer source node notifies the media distributionmanagement system the information of the change, so that the mediadistribution management system updates the media distribution data basedon the change.

All in all, with the above mentioned technical scheme of the presentinvention, a plurality of P2P video service types including video ondemand, live broadcasting, downloading, etc. can be supportedsimultaneously. A P2P system for a plurality of video service types cansupport video on demand, live broadcasting, downloading at the sametime. This system thus enables two clients using different services toshare video contents and provide services to each other, thus the rangeof sharing can be effectively extended, the usage of the clientresources can be optimized, while the provider system and the clientsystem are significantly simplified, so the cost of the operation andmaintenance are reduced.

Above description is only to illustrate the preferred embodiments butnot to limit the present invention. Various alterations and changes tothe present invention are apparent to those skilled in the art. Thescope defined in claims shall comprise any modification, equivalentsubstitution and improvement within the spirit and principle of thepresent invention.

The invention claimed is:
 1. An integrated video service peer to peernetwork system comprises: a media source computer system, configured todivide video service data into one or more segments and each of said oneor more segments into a plurality of blocks, and to generate a mediadescription file based on segment dividing information and media formatinformation, wherein, each of said plurality of blocks is of aself-description type and comprises a block head and a block body, thesaid block body including media data; a media distribution managementcomputer system including a memory device and configured to store saidmedia distribution information in said memory device, wherein, saidmedia distribution information represents the information of the storagestatus of divided video service data segments at a peer source nodecomputer and the information of the serving capability status of saidpeer source node computer; and a plurality of said peer source nodecomputers, configured to store said video service data, and to transmitsaid video service data to a service requesting node; wherein said videoservice data comprises live broadcasting video service data, video ondemand service data, and video downloading service data; and, wherein,said media source computer system further comprises: a real timeprocessing module, configured to set the blocks adjacent to thebroadcasting point in said live broadcasting video service data as alive broadcasting video service data segment, and set only one livebroadcasting video service data segment, when said live broadcastingservice data is broadcasted to said service requesting node, the blocksin said live broadcasting service data segment is updated in real time;and a non-real time processing module, configured to divide, in aunified way, said video downloading service data and/or said video ondemand service data into a plurality of segments and to divide eachsegment of said video downloading service data and/or said video ondemand service data into a plurality of blocks, wherein each of saidplurality of blocks is consisted of a block head and a block body, saidblock body including said media data ordered in time sequence.
 2. Theintegrated video service peer to peer network system according to claim1, wherein, said media data are video frames and audio frames.
 3. Theintegrated video service peer to peer network system according to claim1, wherein, when said video downloading service data and/or said videoon demand service data are received, said service requesting nodecombines the received blocks of said video downloading service dataand/or said video on demand service data as said segment, and stores, inthe unit of said segment, said video downloading service data and/orsaid video on demand service data.
 4. The integrated video service peerto peer network system according to anyone of claims 1, 2, and 3,wherein, said service requesting node acquires, through inquiring saidmedia distribution management computer system, the information of saidpeer source node computer having said video service data segments neededby said service requesting node.
 5. The integrated video service peer topeer network system according to anyone of claims 1, 2, and 3, wherein,said peer source node computer further comprises: a change notificationmodule, configured to notify, when said peer source node computerchanges, said media distribution management computer system theinformation of the change, so that said media distribution managementcomputer system updates said media distribution data based on saidchange.
 6. The integrated video service peer to peer network systemaccording to claim 5, wherein, said change at least comprises: said peersource node computer going on-line or off-line, the change of thesegment dividing of said video service data in the memory and the diskof said peer source node computer, and the change of the servingcapability of said peer source node computer.
 7. The integrated videoservice peer to peer network system according to anyone of claims 1, 2,and 3, wherein, the information contained in said block head comprises:a content ID contained in said block, a segment ID to which said blockbelongs, the number of effective blocks in said block, and a timestamp.8. The integrated video service peer to peer network system according toanyone of claims 1, 2, and 3, wherein, said peer source node computerstores said video service data in the unit of said segment.